JOHNSON IN WISCONSIN

Hello my brothers and sisters in the gospel,I had so much to write to my mom that it was easier for me to just paste it for all you to read, go pop some popcorn and grab a cola cuz its long but i want you all to know how fun a mission is. Enjoy:Hello family,K, let me first answere your questions. I still think i prefer Washington winters over Wisconsin ones, i am not a cold fan and although my tolernace for cold has changed (its 30 right now and thats noting) ths snow is fun to play in but it sucks when its around all the time, rain is easy, id prefer to drive to the mountains to play in it rather than it being an annoynace all the time, lets just say i plan to never visit the midwest during winter time again. Yes there have been times when having "time off" would be nice but that would make it extrememly difficutlt to get back to the routine so thats why missionaries dotn come home for holidays, its better just to hack it the tow years and then be a member missionary for life. I do belive seminary helped but the 1 hour of study we get every morning is maybee my favorite part of the day, its all about repetition, the more you read the BOM the more you will learn from it. Im currently in 3 Nephi and when i finish this round i will have read it 6 times!!! I love stuffing myself with as much study as i can, its great to see how much ive learned. SO, this past week has been wild. Let me start with Tuesday-Thursday. SPRING! Upper 30's and low 40's no clouds beautiful. All the snow melted and we did tons of tracting and were blessed by giving out 6 BOM's and making a niuce potential investigators list to chek up on in the future. On Friday night i went on exchanges with Elder Anderson of the Madison 4th ward and Elder Winkler went with a bunch if other missionaries to Monroe tp play in a piano concert. We went bowling with a less active guy and his nonmember wife who they are teaching and then wnet to pizza hut and had a lesson with them there. When we had first gotten to bowling it barely started snowing and by the time we left pizza hut there was 6 inches of snow on the ground, it was coming down like crazy. The other elders got snowed in Monroe and i got to stay the night with Elder Anderson and thats when the fun started. We got to the apartment and went outside to play in the snow and saw a car that was stuck so we went and pushed them out and there was another car stuck down the street and helped them. We figured tons more people would get stuck that night so we got a skillet and a pot (we had no shovel) and perched out on the street just waiting for people to get stuck and we would run outta nowhere and help them. We were out there till 2 am helping people get outta the snow and the roads were so bad. It was so much fun. We eneded up pushing 12 cars outta the snow, digging thier tires out with a skillet and pots. We didnt get to bed till late but it was so worth it. People looked at us weird for coming outta the woods to help them but they were also grateful. It took them till 1 pm on Saturday to finally pick us up... We all went to the stake center to attend a baptism for a lady named Lorraine Winchel. Her daughter was baptized into the singles branch a year and a half ago and never thought her mom would join the church. It was amazing the spirit that is felt at baptsims. God has restored his church and given us his authority to baptize and organize his kingdom on the earth. It was fun. Yesterday chuurch was cancled throuout the stake so we held a missionary sacrament meeting at the ZL's apartment and we had 12 Elders there. It was awesome. It remninded me of the first sacrament meeting that Joseph Smith and the early members of the church held. We sang hymns and had a testismny meeting and its so awesome being around missionaries. We have such a special calling and its amazing to see how grown up everybody is. Sure, were still boys but the mission matures us so much. I feel like ive grown so much in so many ways. What a great 15 and a half months it has been. Despite all the disappointments i know that my efforts are eternal and even though i may not see tons of baptisms im still doing whats right and i have certainly benefited a ton from my mission. I love getting Legos to add to my tower. So we gave James some D&C to read as we founf out he doesnt have a testimony of Joseph Smith, hoping that would help him. To our dismay we got a message on our machine telling us that he has decided that he is not a prophet and he feels the D&C contradicts the Bible and the BOM. It doesnt make any sense. He professes the BOM to be God's word and he loves reading it but he cant accept the prophet that brought it forth. He also wanted to cancle our appointment for this week. Oh well, i guess ive gotten stuck with all the stubborn people on my mission as ive had people like this in all my areas, the accetp 80 percent of the gospel and you simply cant do that. You cant pick and choose what you like and dont like about the Gospel. The good news is that were gonna start teaching a girl named Tammy who came to churhc last week. She is neighbors with a sweet family in the ward and we sat by her on the bus the other day and invited her to hear the lessons in the Burton's home and she accepted. Hopefully that will go well. All thses experinces are making me stronger and my testimony grows each day. I love you all so much and im grateful for your testimones and examples in my life, which helped me to get here and im ever so grateful for my time to serve, even in winter striken Wisconsin. Well i gotta go, enough tyoing for one day. The church is true and i Love you!!!!! Zone Confrene tomorrow!!! Adios, Elder Ben Johnson